The Shorebird Park Nature Center in Berkeley will break ground tomorrow on construction of a new building set to become a test site for a pilot demonstration of the new Skystream wind turbine, said Alice La Pierre, an energy engineer for the city.
Two years ago, Southwest Windpower, a company located in Flagstaff, Ariz., was seeking places to demonstrate its new wind turbines and contacted the city of Berkeley, La Pierre said.
The city accepted and plans on placing the turbine at the new classroom building, which will serve as the replacement for a current portable classroom structure and will house computers, learning space and an aquarium, La Pierre said.
The project— including the installation of the new turbine and the building process for the new structure—will cost the city $10,000, which La Pierre said is relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of building the new structure with a solar electric system.
Cisco DeVries, chief of staff for Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said the city is proud to have been selected as a test site for the new turbine, calling it “a recognition of Berkeley.”
“Berkeley’s a great place to test environmental technology and to push the envelope for environmental initiatives and sustainability efforts,” he said.
Throughout the last two years, the city and the center have worked to secure permits, environmental reports and approval from the Sierra Club and the Golden Gate chapter of the Audubon Society to move ahead with the construction and installation of the wind turbine, La Pierre said.
The groundbreaking has been set for Tuesday, with the hope that the turbine will be installed on the new building this summer, she said.
The turbine is meant to provide the power for the new building with the goal that it will be an environmentally-sustainable structure, La Pierre said.
While the turbine is projected to produce the majority of the energy for the building, neither has yet been assembled and as DeVries said, “the wind doesn’t blow all the time.”
La Pierre said she estimates that the turbine will power between 80 and 100 percent of the energy necessary to run the building, but added that the estimations were based on the consumption of the old portable structure and not that of the new building.
Patty Donald, the coordinator of the Shorebird Park Nature Center, also said she was not sure if the turbine will be able to produce enough power for the whole building but said that she is still optimistic about the project.
“It isn’t going to meet our needs probably, (but) I think the fact that we’re taking any energy off the grid is the best,” she said.